


Relearning the Stars

by fieldofyellowdandelions



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-07
Updated: 2019-02-07
Packaged: 2019-10-23 18:08:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,915
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17688323
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fieldofyellowdandelions/pseuds/fieldofyellowdandelions
Summary: Taako has a boyfriend he loves and even if he didn’t, Magnus has a wife he is not ready to leave behind but that doesn’t change the fact that on the Starblaster, Magnus and Taako were more than just friends.





	Relearning the Stars

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SilkyinaBottle](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilkyinaBottle/gifts).



When Taako received the gold and silver embossed card cordially inviting him and his plus one to attend the wedding of Karey and Killian, he had absolutely no plans to “répondez s'il vous plait”. He took one look at the beautiful calligraphy asking him to choose chicken, fish or vegetarian and tossed it on the coffee table, soon to be covered with old magazines and flyers and completely forgotten. So Taako was taken by surprise when Kravitz asked him if he was planning on going and, if he was planning on going, would he like Kravitz to come along because, if so, he had broached the subject of vacation time with the Raven Queen and she had been rather amenable to the idea, now with Lup and Barry on the payroll, and he’d love to come if Taako wanted him to but there was no pressure because the vacation time didn’t have to be used right away and if he wasn’t planning on going, maybe they could plan to do something else in the future that…

At which point Taako cut off Kravitz rambling with a quick yes and a simple kiss.

And two months later Taako found himself sitting on a hard plastic chair watching his former co-workers exchange vows of eternal love and loyalty while musing on the fact that he was attending the wedding of a woman who had once tried to kill him.

Beside him Kravitz was watching the ceremony with polite interest, as were most of the other guests, though some were getting a bit sentimental, including Magnus, who as Karey’s best friend and best man, was sitting in the first row and watching intently with, yes, very manly tears in his eyes remembering no doubt his own wedding. It wasn’t difficult for Taako to imagine – after a hundred years hopping from planet to planet, that is all Magnus had wanted – to create a home of his own. And, like that, a memory, long since buried, surfaced.

_Taako was sitting on the deck of the Starblaster, drinking a glass of wine and looking up at the stars in the night sky, studying their configuration and committing them to memory. These were, if all continued to go to plan, going the stars he would have for the rest of his life. As a child, he and Lup had known the stars intimately – occasionally from using them as a way to navigate but far too often from sleeping under them without even a tarp for protection. Taako knew those stars so well that even after a hundred years it was still jarring to look up to the night sky and not find the constellations of his childhood. He stopped trying to learn the new night skies early on, knowing that in a year they would be replaced with a different batch. But if their crazy plan worked, these stars weren’t going to change. Best get to learning them._

_Taako hears to door that leads to inside the ship and he turns to see Magnus standing in the door way. Magnus had returned from hiding his relic last and with a haunted look  in his eyes that had not been there before. He hadn’t talked about what happened while he was away, at least not to Taako._

_Then Magnus smiles, his grin breaking though the stern venire and, in true Magnus fashion, runs across the deck, leaps over the back of the bench and lands, shaking the bench with a warning creak._

_“Oof!” Taako exclaimed, “You idiot! You’re gonna spill my wine! Get off!” He makes a pathetic attempt to push Magnus back off but Magnus is a mountain and it is a half- hearted attempt at best. Instead, Taako  gives up, signs dramatically and leans over to kiss Magnus deeply._

_“Everyone else gone to bed?” Taako asks, pulling back._

_“Yeah,” Magnus says before lying down on the bench with his head in Taako’s  lap, uninvited but not unwelcome, “They’re all asleep.”_

_It wasn’t as though Magnus and Taako were actively hiding this thing they had been doing on and off for over half a century but they did keep it private. That being said, in such close quarters, it was hard to keep anything private for any length of time so Taako wouldn’t have been surprised if everyone knew but were pretending they didn’t. Except Merle, of course, because he would have said something completely inappropriate because Merle. But Lup defiantly knew so maybe Barry did too because, even though Barry had the emotional IQ of an avocado, there were few if any secrets between those two. As for Lucretia and Davenport, it was hard to tell; they both played their hands so close to the chest._

_“So this is it. This is home now.” Magnus says, “This is really home.”_

_Taako drains the rest of his wine before setting the glass down. His free hand then finds his ways into Magnus’ curly, dense hair, combing though and teasing apart the tangles._

_“We could do anything we wanted. Go anywhere. Do anything. We’re not stuck here. We could build a house and it would still be here next year. We could have a real life.”_

_“Umm, Taako replies, non committedly, focusing on a particularly nasty knot._

_“Taako,” a brief pause, “ I want to leave. The Starblaster, I mean. I want to take Fisher and go. I want to find a town and I want to set up a shop. And maybe get a dog.”_

_“A friend for Fisher?”_

_“Yeah, something like that.” There was a pause then, “Taako, would you want to come with me?”_

_The fingers in Magnus’ hair abruptly stop combing then, slowly, resume, as Taako ponders the question._

_A hundred years ago it would have been a quick and automatic no. But a hundred years ago Taako would not have found himself in a situation where he would have had to say no. All he had had was Lup and all he had needed was Lup. They were travellers on a great journey, relying only on each other._

_But after a hundred years of journeying – settling down somewhere if only for a little bit._

_“Taako?”_

_“I-I think I’d like that. I just, I need to talk to Lup first. Give me until tomorrow?”_

_“Okay,” Magnus agreed, once again settling into Taako’s lap, “Tomorrow.”_

Except tomorrow was the day when Taako had come into the kitchen to start breakfast only to find a note from Lup promising to be back soon. After that there were no more lazy morning sleep-ins cuddled in bed with the sun slowly creeping through the curtains, no more quick and dirty fucks in the cleaning closet while supper simmered on the stove, no more late nights bull shitting on the deck of the Star Blaster enjoying each other in the privacy only available once everyone else has gone to bed, no more talk of leaving the Starblaster. There were not even any memories that those things had taken place.

***

Their memories, when they came back, had come back all at once. It was not a linear process, as if one was reliving their life one memory at a time. Instead it was an avalanche of information that they had only a few minutes to sort out and act upon. So, a lot of things, some bigger than others, were not immediately recalled. For months after the fact, Taako would be remembering things for the first time. And it was only after vacating their accommodations on the Moon had Taako begun to realize the depth of the relationship he had shared with Magnus.

Theirs’ had not been some great romantic love. They had not spent decades pining over each other; they were not Lup and Barry. But there had been affection between them. Also, sex. A whole lot of sex. Maybe more sex than affection, especially at the beginning. But it wasn’t like they were horndogs all the time. They’d go years without even sharing a kiss followed by months of passionate love making. Their times apart couldn’t even be classified as break ups. Instead, cooling periods might be a better term to describe them. They’d drift apart naturally only to slowly come back together, like the ebb and flow of the ocean. Their relationship was like a cycle that had been suddenly broken – cracked with the disappearance of Lup and shattered by the erasure of their memories by Lucretia.

It was a good thing Taako had come to this realization after he had left the Moon; he just might have fried Lucreatia with that fireball after all.

In the time since the Day of Story and Song, Taako hadn’t actually seen much of Magnus.  They had both gone off in their separate directions, doing their own thing. And they times their paths had crossed, it was always in a group setting and this was not a conversation Taako, and presumably Magnus since he had never brought it up, wanted to have with Merle in earshot. Knowing Merle, he’d try to be helpful by doing something dumb like casting Zone of Truth and make the situation ten times more awkward.

It was at the reception that Magnus found Taako. Taako was outside the hall hosting the party, sitting on a half wall, taking a break from the awful music and more awful food. He was looking up at the sky; the sun had set and the stars were coming out one by one. He knows these stars; they do not feel foreign to him at all.

Taako hears the door to the hall open but he doesn’t turn his head to see who it is. Instead, he waits for Magnus to come over and sit down beside him. Magnus offers Taako a glass of wine which Takko takes with a nod of thanks..

They don’t look at each other. This is the first time they have been alone since their memories came back. In fact, this has been the first time they have been alone together memories intact since the night on the deck of the Starblaster, planning for a future that never happened.

They sit in silence and, after a few sips of wine, Taako rests his head on Magnus’ shoulder  and Magnus wraps an arm around Taako’s shoulders, gently petting Taako’s hair in slow, soothing strokes.

“I have a boyfriend,” Taako finally says, more to his wine glass than to Magnus.

“I have a wife,” Magnus replies.

More silence.

“It’s probably a good thing,” Taako says, “We would have ended up hating each other.”

“Maybe,” Magnus says, “But I still would have liked to try.” Pause. “I don’t regret marrying Julia. Even knowing how it was going to end, even knowing I wouldn’t be able to change it, I would still do it. I would still fall in love, I would still marry her, I would do it all again.”

A second pause, this one a little longer, as if Magnus is dithering , then, “I would fall in love with you again too.”

Taako sighs and finally looks up from his wine glass to Magnus’; he is looking up into the sky, studying the stars, “Me too.”

Magnus’ looks down at Taako and smiles, both sad and happy. The fingers in Taako’s hair still and, slowly, pulled away but Magnus keeps his burly arm around Taako’s shoulder. He gives him a tight squeeze.

“Enough sappy talk. Let’s get you back to your boyfriend.”

End


End file.
